Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 341 Remembrance and Mourning

The teacup holding pumpkin juice was enchanted, as if it contained a hidden spring of pumpkin juice; once you finished drinking it and left it there, it would replenish itself.

Melvin placed the teacup back on the table, watching as the pumpkin juice filled it, as if it were a delightful sight.

He turned to look at the little witch who was deep in thought and asked softly, "Would you like to learn... this kind of magic?"

"Really?" Hermione was taken aback.

“As long as magical creatures are displayed, it proves that this magic exists,” Melvin said with a light laugh. “In a sense, Charms is bionics; most magic is the wizard’s imitation of magical creatures.”

There's a view in the magical world that magical power is innate, but spells aren't.

Ancient wizards studied the underlying principles of magic by observing the magic of magical creatures. They then used incantations and spellcasting actions to create rituals that guided magical energy along fixed routes to cast spells.

The Illusion Charm originated from the Invisible Beast, the Fire Charm was born from dragonfire, the Weather Charm's prototype was the Thunderbird's cry, the Unseen Stretching Charm was inspired by the Bird-Snake... and so on.

"professor!"

Hermione's spirits lifted, and she stared at the young professor in front of her, asking incredulously, "Have you already succeeded?"

“It’s just a concept right now; experiments are still needed,” Melvin said with a smile. “Ms. Granger, would you be willing to join my research group?”

"But……"

Studying dark creatures like Boggarts and Dementors, and even developing magic that uses emotions to increase magical power, would be an extremely serious illegal act in any country, right?

The little witch looked conflicted, unable to make a decision for a moment.

"I am an elective professor at Hogwarts, a special advisor to the Examinations Authority and the Ministry of Magic, so of course I would not break the law."

Melvin seemed to know what the little witch was thinking, and spoke with confidence: "The foundation of the experiment is a solid and reliable theory. We need to find suitable magical creature prototypes to study new spells, but Dementors and Boggarts can't even be called complete life forms! Hermione, do you know how many magical creatures in the world are associated with emotions and magical power?"

"Isn't it a Boggart and a Dementor?"

"Of course not, it's a different species of North American longhorn water snake."

When Melvin said this, there was a sense of bewitching a little girl.

The gift of the longhorned water snake is impossible to study. Melvin only has the guess that it is scale armor. Yulm has only been hatched for less than two years and its scales have not yet fully grown. He has no idea whether it can appear on other wizards.

The theory he is now proposing is essentially based on his research on Boggarts and Dementors.

Melvin remained outwardly calm, continuing his charade with a mix of truth and lies: "When the Irish witch Aesop Thale founded Ifamoni, she designated four animals as the patron deities of the academy. The Thunderbird was responsible for regulating the climate of Mount Greylock, while the Cat Leopard and Pukchi were responsible for defending against external enemies and ensuring the safety of teachers and students. Only the Eccentric Longhorn Water Snake has not been recorded much."

The little witch listened with great interest, her eyes never blinking.

Yulm, who was standing next to him, also came over, his round eyes wide open, but it was hard to tell how much he could understand.

"In fact, the only wizard in the school's history to have ever seen a long-horned water snake was Aesop Thale..."

“I know that the horned water serpent possesses the gift of prophecy and warned Lady Thale of an impending enemy.” Hermione had read the history of Ephamony’s school.

"As expected of Miss Gryffindor, who knows everything. It's like this: ordinary longhorned water snakes can't predict the future. That water snake has a crystal embedded in its forehead, so it's a different species."

Melvin paused, recalling the white snake, a hint of nostalgia in his eyes: "That long-horned water snake lived on Mount Greylock for who knows how long, possessing both intelligence and the instincts of a beast. That crystal could not only foresee the future, but also sense the emotions of other creatures."

"Like Legilimency?" Hermione glanced unconsciously at the small snake on the table.

Yulm flicked the small horn on its head with the tip of its tail. There was no crystal on its forehead, only a strange scale.

"Yes, it's similar to Legilimency, but the principle is completely different. Simply put, Legilimency is a wizard's magic that allows them to spy on another wizard's thoughts, memories, and emotions, presenting them through images, words, and other means..."

Melvin described it in the simplest terms possible: "The longhorn water snake's perception is more intuitive and concrete, just like snakes have infrared vision and can sense temperature."

Hermione looked thoughtful, then suddenly realized: "Professor, you mean they can see emotions?"

“You are very perceptive. I once asked about its past, but it was unwilling to reveal anything, so I can only speculate about those distant experiences from hundreds of years ago.”

Melvin's tone had slowed down at some point, like an old wizard reminiscing about the past and remembering old friends, with a gentle, storytelling quality:
"When the longhorned water snake was young, that new continent was still undeveloped. The natives lived on the plains, and it liked to hide in remote wilderness forests. It rarely came into contact with humans and could only see the emotions of animals."

"What complex emotions can animals have? They're busy hunting, eating, avoiding predators, courting, and reproducing every day..."

"Those colors are often rather monotonous, even dull. It may think that they are just things like fur and feathers, bright and beautiful, but useless."

“Like peacocks and weasels,” Hermione said, giving two examples.

Melvin nodded and continued, "Until Ms. Iso Searle founded Ephamony in the Greylock Mountains, and its reputation spread, immigrant teachers and students from all over the world gathered at the school, giving it many different subjects of observation."

"Compared to animals, the emotions of wizards are more vibrant, complex, and intense than the most dazzling aurora borealis in nature. They may be angry about an argument one second and joyful and reconciled the next..."

"Human emotions display magnificent and dazzling colors, which naturally arouses the curiosity of the longhorn water snake."

Melvin paused for a moment, thinking that perhaps the water snake had also surfaced out of curiosity to approach him.

"What are you curious about?"

"..."

I'm curious why such a young wizard has a completely different soul inside him.

Melvin answered in his mind, but said the answer to another question aloud: "What wonderful function does this observable and strange existence have? Can it be influenced, captured, or even manipulated? Can it be utilized?"

"Is this dark magic?" Hermione was a little dumbfounded. "It sounds like the Unforgivable Curse."

"Magic is not black and white. Fire spells are divided into bellflower flames and Fiendfire. The theoretical deductions may seem frightening, but the final effect may not be some dark and evil magic."

Melvin pulled himself out of his nostalgia and put on his usual coaxing tone: "Caesar the Conqueror once said, 'You can only conquer by seeing.' Only by observing emotions can you capture them and use them as the key to unlock the treasure trove of magic."

“What Caesar said was: I came, I saw, I conquered,” Hermione corrected.

“They all mean roughly the same thing…” Melvin waved his hand. “Before you can use emotions, you must first be able to sense them.” “How do I sense them?” Hermione asked, puzzled.

"The longhorned water serpent possesses innate talent, while we are wizards, without such talent, and can only compensate for this talent with magic."

"You mean... Legilimency?" Hermione slowly realized what she meant.

"Remember what I mentioned at the beginning? Dementors are excellent teaching tools, not just for practicing Patronus Charms."

Melvin revealed the answer, beckoned, and manipulated the Guardian Angel, Silverlight, to pull the imprisoned Dementors before him:
“Dementors are incomplete life forms, lacking complex and varied thoughts and storing almost no long-term memories, but they have very rich emotions. Their bodies contain many negative emotions, but they also absorb many positive emotions... Using Legilimency on them can relatively easily capture emotions, pure and diverse emotions.”

Hermione stared at the Dementor's terrifying face, her upper body instinctively leaning back.

"Give it a try..." The professor's urging sounded like a devil's whisper.

……

Aberforth stepped off the stair landing and spun around several times, making him dizzy.

He stood in the corridor outside the stairwell, pondering how to continue upstairs. The staircases at Hogwarts seemed to have different temperaments and personalities. The first few floors were gentler and more understanding, and they led him up to the third floor without causing much trouble. There he met Filch and his cat, and pretended to sneak up to the fourth floor.

The staircases after the fourth floor are complete pranksters. Almost all of them have no obvious pattern. I clearly saw the staircase turn to the right half a minute ago. According to normal thinking, it should have stayed still for the next few minutes to allow pedestrians to pass. Even if it turned, it should have turned to the left.

However, the next few times the direction turned right, trapping him on the stairs for nearly half an hour.

"Finally on the sixth floor?" Aberforth muttered.

On the dimly lit corridor walls hung several old directional signs, made of cherry wood and stained with gypsum stone. The words were barely legible by the moonlight: Prefect's Washroom, Corridor of Sycophant Gregory...

Aberforth was a wizard who had dropped out of Hogwarts and had only been there for less than two years. Now, all the information he had about Hogwarts came from the patrons. He knew that the prefects' washroom was on the sixth floor and the headmaster's office was on the eighth floor.

Following the increasingly bizarre spiraling pattern of the staircase, they decided to climb the remaining two floors until dawn.

Couldn't this castle be simpler?
"Hmm?" His azure eyes brightened slightly.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor ahead, but it wasn't the Squib administrator; it was another professor, a strange witch. She was very thin, and her round-framed glasses made her eyes look distorted and somewhat frightening. She wore a shawl adorned with many glittering metal pieces.

“Sybil?” Aberforth called out.

He had met this divination professor before he became the owner of the Pig's Head Bar and was just a bartender.

That was over a decade ago. His brother was interviewing this job seeker at the Hog's Head, and the Trelawney witch made a prophecy on the spot—a prophecy that would affect the future of the wizarding world.

He silently praised Lady Luck in his heart, a charmingly gentle smile playing on his lips, as he walked toward the divination professor, trying to make her his guide to the eighth floor.

Trelawney's thin face was flushed with an unnatural redness, and her eyes were half-closed, not from sleepiness, but from the intoxication caused by alcohol. She smelled of sherry all over her body.

“Oh, Dumbledore…” Trelawney mumbled indistinctly, “By Merlin, I’ve had too much to drink tonight and I’m hallucinating… I feel like you’re not yourself.”

"Forehead……"

Aberforth froze, her eyes twitching slightly. She had forgotten that this was a professor of divination, and a true prophet with a divine eye; her perception was far more acute than that of ordinary wizards.

"Perhaps it's because the sherry that has blossomed has a refreshing taste that makes people drink it quickly and in large quantities without realizing it, making it easy to get drunk."

Aberforth spoke slowly; he ran a tavern and was experienced in dealing with such customers: “I think you should take a break, Sybil. I have hot cocoa in my office, want a cup? It’ll help you sober up and reduce your headache.”

"Headache, for me, just being awake is enough of a headache."

Trelawney complained, "Because of Minerva and Melvin, several students think I'm a fraud and have dropped my divination class. The remaining students are still reading Muggle books in my class, all sorts of weird psychology stuff..."

"..."

Aberforth felt a headache coming on, unsure how to handle school affairs, and could only offer a dry suggestion: "Perhaps you should take a look too?"

“Dumbledore!” Professor Trelawney shouted in displeasure. “You think I’m a fraud too? Haven’t you thought so all along? You want to cancel my Divination class and use the time to talk about his Muggle research!”

"A fraud? No, of course not. We all know you are a genuine prophet." Aberforth spoke these words sincerely.

"But the students don't want to believe it! They choose my classes now because the assignments and exams are easy to get by!"

"..."

Aberforth opened his mouth, but then stopped himself from speaking.

Is this all the work Albus has done over the years?

It wasn't as easy and pleasant as I had imagined.

He regretted coming up to talk to him; he should have just spent two hours on the stairs!

……

Meanwhile, inside the Room of Requirement, in the fake fortress of Azkaban, Hermione was alone in her room, practicing Legilimency against the Dementors, over and over again.

Melvin said he didn't want to repeat Barnabas's mistake and went out to herd Dementors. He adopted Pavlov's dog-training philosophy, which is to train Dementors like dogs. He couldn't provide food for the time being, so he could only provide incentives by walking them.

Inside the vast fortress, only the little witch, the Dementors, and a lazy little snake on the table remained.

Legilimency is not a spell with strict conditions like the Guardian Charm; it is more like a craftsman's skill. Talented wizards can quickly master it and grow into Legilimency masters, while ordinary people can become proficient through repeated practice.

While practicing, you also need to control the Guardian Charm, otherwise the Dementors will use her for practice.

The spellcasting process was repeated over and over. Staring directly into those empty eye sockets, listening to the distant sound of ocean waves, exhaustion surged up like a rising tide, slowly engulfing her.

Hermione blinked slowly, then suddenly felt sleepy.

(End of this chapter)